Before canals existed in Cache County, agriculture was limited to dry farms and grazing, and for pioneer settlements water was not only the source of wealth but of human existence. Construction of the Logan and Hyde Park canal started in 1860, work on four more Logan River canals began in 1864, and the highest canal, Logan Hyde Park and Smithfield, was begun in 1881. These canals included Logan Northern, 16 miles long, irrigating 3,700 acres; Logan and Hyde Park, 7 miles long, irrigating 4,250 acres; Logan North Field, 2 miles long, irrigating 1,200 acres; Logan Northwest Field, 8 miles long, irrigating 3,000 acres; Logan-Providence, 2 miles long, irrigating 420 acres; and Logan Hyde Park and Smithfield, 9 miles long, irrigating 3,060 acres. Canal builders used shovels, picks, spades, wooden plows, and go-devils, large log ditchers shaped like an A and pulled by oxen or horses to push loose dirt into canal banks, with as many as 32 teams of horses working in the valley at one time. Blasting and concrete reinforcement were required for the last Logan River canal in rocky areas along the canyon walls. Early builders established the proper grade for water flow with a homemade device using a long horizontal board, a plumb bob, and uneven stakes, though on one canal the level was accidentally reversed and the project had to be resurveyed because the water was expected to run uphill. When cash was unavailable, workers were paid with deeds for irrigated acreage, and food and tents were provided as they lived on the job. Bank loans could not always be repaid, one project went bankrupt and stood idle for seven years, completed canals were often breached, and maintenance remained a continuing activity. Despite these difficulties, the pioneers brought some 50,000 irrigated acres into production by 1880 and more than 90,000 acres by 1900, representing 1,255 farms in 1880 and 2,506 in 1900, and by 1900 the valley had 118 separate cooperative canal systems, most of which never incorporated and still remained mutual companies managed by and belonging to the farmers they served in 1956.